Edge of the Wilderness (26 page)

“Stop talking like you aren’t going to get well, Simon,” Gen said, half frightened.

He looked at her, his eyes bright with emotion. “Stop pretending I am, Genevieve. It doesn’t help.” He began to talk, the words pouring out like water from a broken dam. “I didn’t know it then, but Daniel Two Stars did
not
get hanged in Mankato. Elliot and I saw him. Last winter. At Fort Ridgely. He—he gave me this—” Simon touched the diary. “—And he said to forget I had seen him.” He stole a glance at Gen before continuing. “I wanted you so badly for myself, Gen. And for the children.” He almost whispered, “Mostly for myself.” When he began to cry again, Gen held his hand between hers. “Part of me thinks you should hate me for keeping you from him. I—I cannot bear to think of meeting God with this unconfessed.” He turned his face away.

The misery in Simon’s face sent a raging torrent of sympathetic love tearing through Gen’s heart. “Don’t—don’t,” she urged, grasping his hand. He tried to pull away, but she forced him to let her raise it to her lips and then to her cheek where her own tears moistened the paper-thin skin. She laid her open palm against his cheek and made him turn his face back toward her. “Look at me, dear. Look at me,” she whispered. When he finally did, she said, “I’ve known about Daniel all along.”

He looked at her, disbelieving.

“When you were so ill in St. Anthony, I went to empty your bags so I could do the laundry. The journal fell out.” She looked down at their clasped hands, murmuring, “I knew there was only one way you could have gotten it. I knew it meant something about Two Stars. Elliot told me what happened.”

“Elliot? Told you?”

Gen nodded. “He found me looking at it. I made him tell me.” She saw the question in his eyes and answered it before he spoke. “Yes,” Gen said softly, brushing his hair back from his forehead. “I knew. And yet I married
you.
And I learned to love
you.
And I would marry you again, and love you still more were I given another lifetime to do it in.” She kissed his cheeks, his chin, his lips. “You are a good husband, Simon. A good father. A good man.” Her voice trembled as she continued. “And I don’t want you to leave me. To leave us. Please. Don’t.”

“Can you ever forgive me?”

“For what?” she said gently. “For wanting to protect me from chaos? For doing what Daniel wanted?” She leaned over and nestled her head against his shoulder. “Two wonderful men have loved me and protected me. There is nothing to forgive. I love you, Simon.” When it seemed he was asleep, Gen slipped away from him. Taking the journal, she turned the lamp down and sat beside the window leafing through the journal as dawn light began to illuminate the room.

She must have dozed off, when Simon’s mutterings woke her again. This time when she went to him, she could see tiny beads of perspiration along his forehead. Frowning, she dampened a cloth and positioned it on his forehead. “Simon,” she said quietly. “Are you sleeping?” To her relief, he muttered, “Just dreaming—resting—so glad.” He sighed then fell to sleep.

An hour later, as the morning light poured through the window next to his bed, he woke abruptly and said, “I need Elliot.”

Gen stood up, took the cloth off his forehead and dipped it into the china basin at his bedside.

“Don’t.” He shook his head. His eyes were bright as he looked up at her and repeated, “Elliot.” He inhaled sharply, then closed his eyes as if the effort to breathe wearied him. “Alone.”

“I’ll get him.” Her petticoats rustled as she moved toward the door and made her way down the hall. She knocked gently at Elliot and Miss Jane’s door, smiling to herself at the realization that although Elliot and Jane had been married for months, Gen continued to think of her friend as
Miss
Jane.

Jane responded quickly to Gen’s slight tapping on the bedroom door. Peeping from beneath her nightcap she grabbed Gen’s hand. “Oh, no!”

Gen shook her head. “It’s not that. He has a slight fever again, but I think he’s better. He’s asking for Elliot.”

“I’ll come immediately.” Elliot’s deep voice sounded from the shadows in the room. True to his word, he stepped out into the hall so quickly Gen wondered if he might have been sleeping in his clothes. Only his shirt, open at the neck, gave an indication he had hurried to get dressed.

“Alone, Genevieve,” Simon said almost sternly when the two opened his door.

With a little frown, Gen left the room, hesitating in the hall. If she went downstairs she would have to contend with the servants who seemed to resent it when she made herself at home in their kitchen. She went to the top of the broad staircase and sat down, tipping her head back against the wall to look out the Palladian window and down on the garden. It was barren now, but in spring and summer it was one of the most admired gardens in the village. Mother Leighton prided herself on her talents with roses. She had promised Meg her own corner of the garden this spring.

Gen sighed and rubbed the back of her neck. Elliot exited the room and walked past her on his way downstairs. “We’ll be awhile,” he said gently. “Why don’t you take the opportunity to get some sleep?” Without waiting for her reply, he continued downstairs. He came back up again bearing a sheaf of paper, an ink bottle, and a pen.

“Mrs. Dane?” Betsy called from the foot of the stairs. “Is everything all right?”

Gen stretched and started to get up. “I think so. Mr. Leighton is with the reverend.” She smiled. “I’ve been dismissed.” “Can I get you anything?” Betsy asked.

“I’d love some strong coffee,” Gen said. “I just didn’t want to invade your territory”

Betsy grinned. “Cook guards the kitchen like it was the last stand in a battle. But this is Cook’s day off, and
I
certainly don’t mind if you make yourself at home in the kitchen.”

Simon lifted his head off the pillow and wheezed, “Promise me you will do it, Elliot. On God’s Word. Promise.”

Elliot looked up from his papers. “You have my word.”

Simon peered into his brother-in-law’s eyes for a moment before relaxing back against his pillow with a sigh. “Thank you, Elliot. You have been a good brother.”

A few days later, Gen sat in the parlor with Jane, waiting for Dr. Merrill to come down from Simon’s room. When he did, his face did not reveal what the women wanted to see. “But only a week ago you said he had survived the worst,” Gen said, her voice wavering. Jane put a comforting hand on Gen’s arm.

“I know,” the doctor said, stroking his beard self-consciously. “I was wrong. We could expect him to throw it off if he had been in better health, but I’m afraid he’s let his general constitution become so run down that even the slightest compromise in his lungs can be serious. And this is more than a slight compromise.” He sighed. “Perhaps I am wrong. A person’s own will can work miracles. I’ve seen it happen before. But I’ve also seen strong-willed individuals succumb to lesser cases. Life and death are in God’s hands, Mrs. Dane. I will do all I can.” He headed for the back door.

Gen went to Simon, who was resting quietly. “What does he say?” he asked without opening his eyes.

“That there is always hope,” Gen answered.

After a moment, Simon whispered, “I’m not afraid, Gen. I’ve lived a good life. God knows the best time to take me home. And if I am to go now, I do not wish to linger long, although I would be glad to stay longer for the children’s sake.”

“Stay for
me,”
Gen begged, sitting down next to him. “Stay for me.”

“I’m tired, Gen,” he said, and slipped away. She thought at first he was asleep, but soon realized he was nearly unconscious. His skin felt clammy.

Over the next few days, Simon had odd moments of lucidity when he woke and surprised whoever was tending him with a memory of the past or a comment on some biblical concept. Once, he asked Elliot to read hymns aloud. Another time he requested the Psalms. Meg sang to him. Aaron read an essay he had written on the greatness of God. Several times Simon gave Gen suggestions for the future, insisting that she repeat what he had said, eliciting her promise to obey him.

He wanted the children raised in New York, he said. The schools were better. “Where else would we go, dear?” Gen reassured him.

“They love Jane and Elliot, don’t they?” he asked once.

“Of course,” Gen said. “It’s almost as if they have two sets of parents.”

Simon complained of feeling dull and stupid. “I can’t make my mind think on anything for more than a second,” he murmured, “I don’t ever remember feeling so tired.”

When fever raged, his mind wandered and fastened onto impossible, imaginary things. He tried to get out of bed one night and mount an imaginary horse. “But I have to get to Cloudman’s village, Gen—they want me to marry Blue Eyes and Two Stars—they’ve been waiting—let me go.”

It was several moments before Gen could calm him down. When she did, she sat back in her chair, trembling.

One morning, he asked what day it was. “The Sabbath,” Gen answered, and commented that the children had walked up the street with Jane and Elliot to attend church.

“Ah,” Simon said, smiling happily. “I think He may come for me today, Gen.” He sighed. “I hope He does.”

That evening, Simon’s breathing changed. Dr. Merrill was summoned. He had only stepped into Simon’s room when he shook his head. “The battle will be over soon,” he said quietly, looking at Gen. “If his children want to see him—”

Meg and Aaron kissed his cheek.

Hope called out, “Pa! Pa!”, and strained to climb onto the bed.

Aaron scooped her up and nuzzled her cheek. “Pa’s sleeping, Hope.”

“Night-night, Pa,” Hope said, waving at Simon as Aaron carried her out of the room.

When Gen put her hand on Meg’s head and stroked her red curls, Meg asked in a forced whisper, “Do you think he’ll see Mother right away?”

“The minute he’s gone from us he will be there—with your mother.”

Meg kissed her father on the cheek and whispered, “Tell Mother hello, Father. Tell her we are safe at Grandma’s and we are all right.”

In the evening, Simon roused enough to swallow a few drops of tea. Gen slipped out of the room and went to say prayers with Meg. When she came back to his side, he was gone.

“He opened his eyes,” Jane said, “called out the name Ellen . . . and then took a long, slow breath . . . and that was all.”

That was all.
The phrase echoed in Gen’s mind over the next few weeks. Eventually her prayers cried it out to God.
Was that all, Lord? Was that all You had for me? Is my life over now?

She donned the mourning clothes Mrs. Leighton deemed appropriate and never went out in public with her face unveiled. Sabbath services were her only outing.

Not long after Simon’s funeral, Elliot Leighton left for Washington. He sent them a copy of the new agent’s report about conditions at Crow Creek.
One bastion of the stockade has no roof. Plastering is needed, fences in poor condition, prairie sod badly broken. Only two cows and seventeen wagons, mostly in poor condition, to serve the population of 1,043 Indians—900 of them women. Of 170 ox yokes only thirty serviceable. A leaky boiler in the sawmill, and spoiled beef to eat. Potatoes ravaged by grasshoppers and bugs. Many Indians still living in cloth tepees brought from Minnesota two years ago.
His letter concluded with,
I will not have time to return to New York before departing with a commission appointed to assess the situation firsthand. At last Avery has listened to me. Perhaps now something can be done.

When Jane read the letter aloud at dinner one April morning, Gen felt a sudden stab of jealousy at Elliot’s easy departure for the West. Men had such different lives from women. She looked down at her black dress, smoothing the folds of her skirt.
Lord, make me willing to be content.
She spent hours in the garden working alongside Mrs. Leighton, inhaling the aroma of the damp earth, coaxing the tendrils of a vine onto the latticework gazebo, thinning raspberry bushes, doing a thousand other things to encourage new life.

Every afternoon when Hope napped she walked up the street and into the brick-walled cemetery, perching on the stone bench beside Simon’s and Ellen Dane’s graves. She could not shake the sensation that she was waiting for something—some new event or announcement that would suddenly give life as a widow new meaning. She told herself this was just grief working its way in her life. Still, she felt as if she were suspended in life like the marionettes she and the children had once seen perform at a county fair.

As soon as the soil could be worked, they began Meg’s promised garden. Meg and her grandmother mulled over plans every evening until they decided on an L-shaped plot in one corner of the yard. Meg was thrilled when her grandmother said she might have a small reflecting pool in the middle. “And we’re going to have roses,” she told Gen one evening over supper. “One bush for each member of the family. What color would you like?”

Gen didn’t know. “I don’t know very much about roses, Meg. Whatever you and your grandmother decide will be fine.”

Aaron dug the new garden with Meg and Hope working at his side picking rocks from the fresh-turned soil and carrying them to the edge of the flower bed where the women used them for edging.